Energy saving lights

Since I got my latest gadget - a meter that tells you how much electricity you're using per hour/day/week/year whatever - ive started to pay attention to what's happening in the house. It seems that just one light in the kitchen - with three spotlights on it uses about 50p of electricity per day. Or it would if it was left on permanently - and in this house it's quite likely ! In comparison the house will use about 50ps worth of electricity a day with no lights on and just the normal things plugged in. All of the other bulbs in the house are now low energy - we soon weeded out which ones weren't as it was obvious when the usage shot up as soon as they were turned on. I don't think there's a low energy bulb that matches the brightness of the spot lights - unless I've missed something. Should I just bin the spots and get a more conventional light fitting ? The bulbs are fairly cheap now but don't seem to last very long. The meter is very handy - I'd no idea of how much energy things used before. Energy companies should be made to provide them for consumers I reckon - if the government is serious about us reducing energy consumption.

Cougs, check out the LED ranges. THe really do last for ever and are lower energy than the low energy bulbs. Moreover, they have a much better quality (and colour) of light. If you go for the soft tones they are not the harsh blue/white LED light that we associate with headtorches and car headlamps. I have just changed all my G9's and I reckon payback on the LEDs will be less than 1 year in reduced leccie...

Just googled G10 LED to give you an idea and this is the sort of thing you find... LINK

LEDs are definitely the way to go. We have picture lights with them - there is no UV radiation to dull the paint or any heat output and they only use 7w each! Probably less now as they are set to half output as they were so bright! For our main living room lights we use halogen 40w which give a good strong light and normal low energy in lamps as they give a nice warm glow in their corners and are not needed for seeing things, just for the atmosphere. I might investigate some more LEDs as I didn't realise there was such a range now - bathroom and kitchen lights could be upgraded as they probably get used the most.

Cougs, check out the LED ranges. THe really do last for ever and are lower energy than the low energy bulbs. Moreover, they have a much better quality (and colour) of light. If you go for the soft tones they are not the harsh blue/white LED light that we associate with headtorches and car headlamps. I have just changed all my G9's and I reckon payback on the LEDs will be less than 1 year in reduced leccie...

Just googled G10 LED to give you an idea and this is the sort of thing you find... LINK

They DO look a bit odd when you first put them in though! I've got them in my bathrooms and it took me a while to get used to the light!

GU10's that are NOT LED blow up every five bloody minutes in my kitchen. And they're a pain in the arse.

the lights in our living room had dimmer switches on them............... they cost a fortune when they are on so we have had the switches removed.....don't know why a dimmer switch made such a difference

We bought some of these... our kitchen diner has 12 GU10s, which is a whopping 600W; the new ones (warm white) are 5W each, so it's now lit by the equivalent of a 60W bulb.

We have 7 in the hall, so that's down to 35W from 350...

The newer design bulbs are excellent and fit the lamp holders perfactly, come on instantly and are brighter than the halogens. We did look at the older design, but they were awful; didn't come on immediately then needed to warm up, poor colour of light and were much dimmer.

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